LOS ANGELES – April 20, 2020 – BlackLine, Inc. (Nasdaq: BL) announced today that nearly 1,100 Finance & Accounting (F&A) professionals attended its first-ever virtual European user conference – more than twice the number expected at the in-person event originally scheduled to take place in London in mid-March just as travel advisories and stay-at-home orders were being instituted in an attempt to mitigate transmission of the coronavirus. To ensure the utmost safety and well-being of its customers, partners and employees, BlackLine turned the event into a virtual experience with just 10 days to go. The record attendance at the virtual event demonstrates the resiliency of the global remote workforce and the desire of the BlackLine community to connect with one another, even in the most uncertain of times.
Converted to a series of online presentations comprising more than six hours of content over two days, ‘InTheBlack (London) 2020: The Modern Accounting Experience’ explored the importance, benefits and journeys of Finance & Accounting organizations moving away from unsustainable traditional manual accounting processes to modern F&A operations. Featured speakers included thought leaders from EY and SAP, along with BlackLine customers Domino’s, G4S and Micro Focus.
"We didn’t want to disappoint the hundreds of F&A professionals from all over Europe who were looking forward to a collaborative experience with fellow BlackLine users. Rather than cancel or postpone, we forged ahead with just over a week to put on a virtual conference that offered the same experiential feel and quality of content our customers have come to expect,“ said Andres Botero, BlackLine’s chief marketing officer. “We were able to line up our original sponsors and speakers to present a highly informative and engaging virtual event. And we made sure to include live, interactive Q&A in an effort to recreate the feeling of community and collaboration that is so important to our customers.”
BlackLine also announced it doubled the number of customers in attendance at a recent virtual ‘Best Practices Summit’ over what it expected at the in-person event originally slated to be held in San Francisco and is seeing similar results as it converts its prospect-focused ‘Finance Transformation Series’ to virtual events.
Here’s what attendees have said about recent BlackLine virtual events:
“Thank you for making the switch to virtual. It shows how nimble the BlackLine team really is!”
“Clear, concise, relevant topics with great speakers.”
“First of ALL - an INCREDIBLE job done turning this around and STILL Making it happen!!! An ABSOLUTE CREDIT to the team behind it and ALL the presenters for recording and delivering their content to make this happen.”
“Enjoyed the different speakers.”
“Great session, virtual works.”
“The response to our recent virtual events shows that although F&A professionals all over the world may be working from home right now, they are still focused on productivity, learning and collaboration. We are rethinking how we engage with customers going forward,” Mr. Botero added. “We may change the mix of in-person versus virtual events or expand our reach by adding a virtual component to the live events.”
All of the InTheBlack virtual presentations are available here. BlackLine has a number of additional upcoming virtual events planned, including its annual Asia-Pacific user conference. For more information or to register, go here.